


Oops, I Love You

by Ignisentis



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: A declaration of love via baked goods, AU: they were roommates, But It Gets Resolved Quickly, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Valentine's Day, a tad bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:08:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29123187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ignisentis/pseuds/Ignisentis
Summary: Joe’s looking past him now, at the wall above Nicky’s head, and his leg is bouncing faster. But none of that matters because Joe loves him. Joe loves him! Joe LOVES him!! Nicky’s brain tells him to forget the fucking cookies and tell Joe he loves him back, but what his mouth says is:“What do you mean ‘message received’? Joe, you gave me cookies that said ‘Nicky I Love You Oops’! If anyone received a message, it was me!”“What?!” Joe hisses, horrified. “That last cookie didn’t say ‘oops’!”“Yes, it did!”“No, it didn’t! Why would I say oops? That makes it sound like some sort of a mistake or —”“Yes, it does make it sound like that!”
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 44
Kudos: 232





	Oops, I Love You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [paperstorm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperstorm/gifts).



> This one is for the amazing [Paperstorm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperstorm), who texted me a picture of the Valentine's cookies she and her mom made, complete with one that said "oops" on it, and my brain went OH, I CAN WORK WITH THAT! So have a little early Valentine's Day fluff, my dear!

Nicky sighs as he glances down at the heart-shaped sugar cookie he’s decorating: it looks horrible. Nigh inedible, in fact. The lines are all wobbly, the sprinkles uneven, the icing runny. Nothing like the cookies Joe decorates, which are beautiful and perfect. Of course they are.  _ Everything _ about Joe is beautiful and perfect. 

Nicky sighs again and grabs another cookie from the pile. He doesn’t know how he keeps letting Joe talk him into these things. Well. That’s not true. He knows  _ exactly  _ how he keeps letting Joe talk him into things, and it’s because he’s been in love with Joe for  _ years,  _ pining away after his best friend like the most clichéd kind of lovesick puppy. 

Joe looks over at him just then, grinning as he holds up the cookie he just finished decorating. It’s perfect, just like Nicky knew it would be, the word “love” beautifully rendered with Joe’s looping script. Nicky smiles through the ache in his chest and wishes Joe meant it for him. 

Later that afternoon, Joe comes over to where Nicky’s reading on the couch with a plate in his hands, which usually means Nicky has gotten so engrossed in his book that he skipped lunch and Joe’s bringing him something to eat. Because he always notices when Nicky forgets to eat. Except instead of looking fondly admonishing he looks...well, Nicky would say he looks nervous, but Joe is one of the bravest people Nicky knows, and he’s never once seen him look nervous. 

Nicky sits up straight and sets his book down on the coffee table in front of him, next to a mug of forgotten, long-cold tea Joe must have set there hours ago without Nicky noticing. He looks up at Joe to apologize, but the words die on his tongue when he sees how worked up Joe is about  _ something _ , but Nicky has no idea what it could be. Joe is always so open with his emotions that Nicky knows him better than he knows himself, so the fact that he can’t tell what’s going on with Joe is making him feel panicky.

“Joe,” he says quietly into the thick silence between them. Joe flinches a little at the sound of Nicky’s voice, which ramps up Nicky’s anxiety even further. “Joe, what —”

“I-I made these. For you,” Joe stumbles over his words as he holds out the plate for Nicky, closing his eyes and sighing at himself.

“You made these for me,” Nicky confirms as he takes the plate.

“Yeah, uh, yeah. I did.”

Nicky frowns as Joe starts wringing his hands and shifting his weight on his feet. Whatever’s bothering Joe is related to the plate Nicky’s holding in his hands, so Nicky looks down to see what it is. It’s...cookies. The cookies they decorated earlier — well, five of them. Nicky’s confused and looks back up at Joe, who’s looking at him with the most heartbreakingly hopeful look on his face. It makes him look incredibly vulnerable and so, so young.

Nicky swallows and looks back down at the cookies. He notices there’s a word written on each of them, and they spell out...oh. They spell out…

“Nicky I Love You Oops.”

Oops.  _ Oops. _

Shame and anger start roiling in his stomach as tears prick his eyes. Joe must have finally somehow figured out how Nicky feels about him and decided to...to do what, prank him? Humiliate him?  _ Fuck!  _ Nicky stands up abruptly and drops the plate on the coffee table, not caring one bit that the cookies fly everywhere and break as the plate cracks in two. He pushes past Joe and bolts to his room, locking the door behind him. He throws himself onto his bed and burrows under the covers, completely ignoring how concerned and upset Joe sounds as he’s calling Nicky’s name while he pounds on the door.

Joe gives up and leaves eventually, which is fine. It definitely doesn’t make Nicky cry harder because it’s  _ fine _ . It’s fine that Joe, for the first time in the 12 years that Nicky’s known him, decided to be cruel. It’s fine that he targeted Nicky. It’s fine that he broke his heart. It’s fine that he thinks Nicky’s love is a joke, that Joe will never love him, that they’re going to stop being friends, that Nicky’s going to have to move out, that Nicky will see Joe across the street one day, years from now, on the arm of some handsome man, beautifully, incandescently happy, and it will be  _ fine _ that it breaks Nicky’s heart all over again.

It’s all fine, except for how it isn’t fine at all. Not one fucking bit.

Nicky feels scraped raw by the time he stops crying, his eyes tired and achy. Joe’s always been the one to comfort Nicky when he’s been upset, and he desperately wants that comfort now. He wants to feel Joe’s long arms wrapped around him, to hear the soothing words Joe tells him as he slowly rubs his hand up and down Nicky’s back. More than anything, he wants to go back to this morning when he loved Joe from afar and none of this had ever happened.

He sighs when his stomach rumbles, reminding him he hasn’t eaten anything since this morning. He really doesn’t feel like eating anything now either, but he knows if he just goes to bed like he wants to, he’ll regret it when he wakes up in the morning. Reluctantly, and wrapped in a blanket, Nicky leaves his bedroom and shuffles across their apartment to the kitchen. It’s dark in the apartment, the only light coming from the bulb over the sink Joe likes to leave on for Nicky when he raids the fridge for a late snack, despite the fact it flickers every now and then.

When Nicky opens the fridge, there’s a plate with a sandwich and a sliced apple on it. The apple is browning a bit, so Joe must have made it for him at some point after the cookie debacle and left it for Nicky in case he decided to eat. Which is... _ god _ , it’s so typically Joe, he’s always doing shit like this, little things to show how much he cares. 

He’s so kind and sweet, so unfailingly good, and his stunt this afternoon is so out-of-character that if anyone else told Nicky that Joe had done that to them, Nicky would say there had to be some sort of misunderstanding because Joe would  _ never _ .

Nicky can feel his runaway thoughts come screeching to a halt. Wait. If Joe would  _ never _ , maybe he  _ didn’t _ ? Maybe he — Nicky turns his head sharply at the muffled sound of a sob coming from the living room. It’s completely dark in that room, so Nicky thought Joe was in his bedroom or maybe out somewhere, but he hears another muffled sob, so he walks into the other room to see what’s going on.

Joe’s sitting on the couch when Nicky turns on the light, the ruined plate of cookies still lying on the coffee table where Nicky left it when he fled the room. Joe’s hunched over with his face buried in his hands, his shoulders shaking as he sobs. 

“Joe,” Nicky says, concerned for his friend, and also more convinced than ever that maybe he somehow misread the situation earlier. “Joe, what’s wrong?”

Joe shakes his head, so Nicky sits down on the couch to wait him out, farther apart than he usually sits. The space between them is a few scant inches, but Nicky’s never felt further away.

Joe’s sobs turn to sniffles then to a dejected sigh. He lifts his head and sets his hands on his thighs, turning toward Nicky with a wobbly smile on his face. He looks devastated. “Joe —” Nicky starts, but Joe cuts him off before he can say anything else.

“Can we please just pretend today never happened? We can wake up tomorrow morning and pretend like you don’t know I’m in love with you and I don’t know that you don’t love me back. Okay? Does that work for you? Because if I lose you over this, I’ll —”

“Wait, wait. Just — just wait a second,” Nicky interrupts  _ because what the fuck is Joe talking about?!  _ Joe loves him? No, that...that can’t be right, that’s not what he meant with the cookies. Did he? Nicky looks at Joe: Joe, with his inky, red-rimmed eyes full of tears, and  _ wonders _ . 

“You love me?” Nicky finally asks, soft and unsure.

Joe huffs and shakes his head. “I’ve loved you for years, Nicky.  _ Years _ . I’ve waited and waited, and I finally thought maybe you felt the same, but it’s okay that you don’t. We can still be friends, can’t we?” Joe pleads.

Nicky’s heart is thudding hard in his chest, and his head feels thick, like it’s wrapped in cotton wool that makes it hard to think. “You think I don’t love you?”

“Nicky…” Joe swallows. His leg is bouncing. “I know it was silly to use the cookies to tell you, but I don’t know, I thought it was cute. And I was too nervous to say it out loud. I had this whole plan: give you the cookies, and you would kiss me, and I’d be so happy, and we’d talk all night before we went to bed together. Just to sleep, or...whatever you wanted. Tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day, and we both somehow have the day off, so I made all these plans...It doesn’t matter. You saw the cookies and threw them aside as you fled from the room, so message received, believe me. Loud and clear.”

Joe’s looking past him now, at the wall above Nicky’s head, and his leg is bouncing faster. But none of that matters because Joe loves him. Joe  _ loves _ him.  _ Joe loves him!  _ Nicky’s brain tells him to forget the fucking cookies and tell Joe he loves him back, but what his mouth says is:

“What do you mean ‘message received’? Joe, you gave me cookies that said ‘Nicky I Love You Oops’! If anyone received a message, it was me!”

“ _ What?! _ ” Joe hisses, horrified. “That last cookie didn’t say ‘oops’!”

“Yes, it did!”

“No, it didn’t! Why would I say oops? That makes it sound like some sort of a mistake or —”

“Yes, it _does_ make it sound like that!”

“Oh. Ohhhhh, Nicky, is that why you ran away? Did you think — “

“I ran away because I thought you finally figured out that I was in love with you and were mocking me for it!”

Joe rears back like someone slapped him. His mouth is open in shock, and he’s holding his hand to his chest. “I would  _ never _ mock someone for being in love!”

Nicky rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I’m getting that  _ now _ .”

“And especially not  _ you! _ ” Joe continues.

“Okay, I get it! But if the cookie didn’t say ‘oops,’ what  _ did  _ it say?”

“It said ‘O-O PS,’ as in “P.S., hugs and kisses!”

“Hugs and...Joe. Oh, Joe.” Nicky feels all fizzy, and a laugh bubbles up from his chest.

“Nicky,” Joe whines, the barest hint of a smile tugging at his mouth.

“Joe. Hugs and Kisses is ‘X-O’ not ‘O-O.’”

“No, it’s…” Joe trails off, frowning as he thinks about it. 

“It is.”

“Oh, fuck, you’re right,” Joe gasps as his eyes widen.

“Why did you put the P.S.  _ after _ the hugs and kisses? That’s supposed to go first!”

“Because the hugs and kisses were the most important part!” Joe says, laughter in his voice.

“You idiot,” Nicky says fondly, beaming at Joe.

Joe barks out a laugh. “Wait, close your eyes. Don’t move, just give me one second…”

Nicky does as Joe asks and closes his eyes. The bubbly feeling from before has turned to full-on effervescence. He feels like he’s about to float to the ceiling.

“Okay, you can open them.”

Joe is smiling widely and holding the plate from this morning — gingerly, since the plate broke in half — the cookies reconstructed as best he could. Except for the last one. That one’s been rearranged so it says “PS OO.”

“Nicky, I love you. PS, hugs and kisses,” Nicky reads aloud, to Joe’s broadening smile. He gently takes the plate from Joe’s hands and sets it down on the coffee table before scooting closer to Joe. They both turned sideways on the couch during their argument, so now their knees are touching. 

“I love you, too,” Nicky whispers before leaning in to kiss Joe’s plush lips. They’re both smiling too much for their first kiss to be anything but awkward, but the second is better. So is the third. And the fourth and the fifth. Nicky loses count after that, but each kiss is better than the last.

Joe pulls back finally, breathless and beautiful. “As much as I want to keep kissing you — and trust me when I say that I do — today has been a real roller coaster of emotions, and I’m feeling a little overwhelmed. Do you think we could just go to bed?”

“Together?” Nicky asks hopefully.

“Yeah,” Joe says, threading his fingers through Nicky’s and squeezing his hand. “Together.”

“Can I hold you a bit before we fall asleep?”

Joe’s face softens adorably. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

“Good. I would, as well. Come on,” Nicky says as he stands up, using their shared grasp to pull Joe to his feet. Joe presses up against him when he stands, so Nicky kisses him on the nose before they start walking to Joe’s bedroom. “You can tell me all about these plans you have for tomorrow while we’re cuddling.”

“Mnh-mnh, nope. You’re gonna have to wait until tomorrow to find out.”

“Just one hint?”

“No! It’s a surprise!”

Nicky groans. “Surprises never end well for me!”

“I don’t know,” Joe says, “I think today’s ended up pretty well.”

Nicky smiles and lets himself feel unbearably fond of the man next to him. He leans in to kiss Joe’s lips. “Yeah,” he says. “It did.”   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
